uo 



CIIAPTKR III. 



NATURAL HISTORY, 



1 HIS department of science scarcel}^ yields to 

 either of the preceding in the extent and vakie of 

 the improvements which it has received within 

 the period under consideration. Many of the ob- 

 jects, indeed, to which natural history relates, have 

 been, in some degree, known and studied by man, 

 from the earliest ages, as means of supplying the 

 Vvants, and obtaining the luxuries of life. Solo- 

 mon, the king of Israel, we are told, spake of frees, 

 from the cedar tree that is hi Lehano7i, even unto 

 the hyssop that springeth out of the tvall ; — he spake y 

 also, of beasts, and of birds, and of creeping thingSy 

 and of fishes^ , And, if we may judge from the 

 respectful terms in wliich such studies are men- 

 tioned, in this and in various other passages of 

 sacred scripture, we may conclude they were held 

 in high estimation in very early times. It was 

 not, however, until long after the revival of letters 

 and science in Europe, that natural history began 

 to receive the attention due to its importance. 

 Toward the close of the seventeenth century, after 

 several learned societies in Great Britain, and on 

 the continent, had been formed, the taste for thi:^ 



* 1 Kings iv, 33. 



